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I’ve now been at Södra Esplanaden for nearly three months. It feels like I’ve been here for a year. I wonder if that’s good or bad…?

Anyway, it’s been kind of intense. Lots of stuff going on. Not too long ago we had our house warming party (I joined Södra Esplanaden a month after they conquered this place), and an “open house” with workshops displaying what we’re doing here at SE. I taught honored colleagues and guests how to draw Bamse.

I had them try to draw the bear first just from verbal description (before), then demonstrating the “rules” on the black wall and let them try again (after). It actually worked better than I’d thought. Maybe cartooning isn’t that hard after all?

Personally I find the “före” drawings more interesting than the “efter” ones. What do you think?

After the workshops the open house turned into full house. SE was crammed to the rim with party people. Happiness! I’m truly proud to be associated with these guys:

As a little epilogue to this story of niceness, my colleague Anders Mildner told me that his son had been here a week ago. He went straight inside the black box and continued working on his Bamse skills. Apparently my lesson had left some marks (hopefully not scars). Perhaps a future colleague, or competitor?

I’ve been busy lately with several projects for the upcoming Malmö Comics Festival I Seriernas Värld. One of these is the mask exhibition at Teknikens och Sjöfartens hus (26 Oct-22 Nov), where a group of professional comic artists will exhibit their masks. I handed mine in today (at least one hour prior to deadline!).

It’s supposed to be a somewhat distorted mask of Buster Keaton. My thoughts behind this is that I always wished I was a better storyteller. To be so you need to be able to keep your cool, to have a poker face. Especially when you want to tell a funny story. Buster Keaton was a very funny man, in spite of being known as “the stone face”, or maybe because of it, I’m not sure. So instead of loosing out to four year olds in “the angry game”, like I do, I wish I was as cool and funny as Buster Keaton…

And these were the sketches leading up to the finished piece:

Young Buster of the 20s or so. Wasn’t he somewhat reminiscent of The Spirit?

Old Buster, as he appeared in the 60s.

Good ol’ Buster after having been squeezed through my twisted mind.

The finished piece is enormous, like A1. I loved working in this large format again. Long time ago. Notice how it completely fills up my drawing table, to the extent that I had to turn it 90 degrees. After two days work, my back is but a shadow of its former self…

And now for the very best part of this project: If you happen to be 11-14 years of age, you can participate in a mask workshop 26-30 Oct (at Teknikens och Sjöfartens hus) that will be headed by me and Mia Widén, a great artist, graphic designer and creator of comics. By pure coincidence she happens to be from the same little village as me (Sandsbro, 5 km outside Växjö). Participants get two hours to create their own mask that will be part of the exhibition!

The finished exhibition with all the masks (there will be at least a hundred of them) opens Fri 30 Oct. It’s going to be cool. Don’t miss it!

In workshop II and III, the LAC children created comics with their characters from workshop I. Or they made up new ones. I was baffled by the creativity of the children. Amazing stuff! I got a taste for teaching cartoons and comics. Inshallah, I’ll be able to develop these workshops further in the future.

On 19 July we made an exhibition with some of the children’s work. The exhibition was part of this year’s Arabic Arts Festival, and it took place at LJMU centre for Art and Design. It was also a two part competition, one for best character and one for best comic. The winners got a book on cartooning, and the 2nd prize winners got a drawing set of pencils, eraser, ink pens, felt tips and drawing pad. If you look carefully you’ll see the 1st and 2nd prize winners in the above slide shows.